Introduction
Fiio, an audiophile brand that is widely familiar among the community, from portable amplifiers, DAC to earphones they always surprise the audiophile’s community with new exciting products line-up almost every quarter. With another quarter coming to an end, Fiio yet again, shoved our ears with their newly released FA7s balanced armature in-ear monitors. The FA7s is a step up from their original FA7, which was released in 2018 featuring additional 2 more Balanced Armature drivers and an upgraded cable as default. Big shoutout to Red Ape for being so awesome to give us a great opportunity to check out this latest gem from Fiio.
Specification
Drivers : 6 Balanced Armature
- 2x Knowles HODVTEC-31618 (Bass)
- 2x DIBEI db646006 (Mids)
- 2x Knowles RAD-33518 (Highs)
Frequency Response: 10-40kHz
Sensitivity: 111dB (1kHz@1mW)
Impedance: 18Ω@1kHz
Connector: MMCX on earphones unit with 2.5/3.5/4.4mm straight swappable audio plugs
Weight: About 8.4g (excl. cable)
*Source: https://www.fiio.com/fa7s_comparisons
Packaging and Accessories
The Fiio FA7s being a mid tier price range product, the overall from the glance of its packaging, it does not fail to show off its luxury and maybe a little bit of gaming vibe from the holographic box design.
Are you someone who just started dipping your toes in the sea of portable audio? Fiio got you covered with complete necessities accessories when you pick up the FA7s.
Wanted to play around by swapping ear tips? It comes with 5 types (Bass, vocal, balanced, memory foam and double flange) of ear tips where each type will give you a slight tweak of audio flavour.
Are you someone who loves to keep their earphones pristine? The included hard cover case will definitely give you the protection the earphones need. The waterproof feature of the case will also keep it safe if you accidentally bring it for a swim. There is also a cute little brush just in case you want to dust off any micro particles on the earphones surface or the ear tips and a magnetic cable tie to keep those chucky cable organised.
Fancy to upgrade some third-party cables? There is a MMCX assist tool included that allows you to eject the cable elegantly so that you don’t need to struggle pulling the connector like the others.
Even if you don’t want to spend money buying cables for different connections to cater different source output, the included 2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm swappable connector should cover most of your portable source output connection.
Retail Price & Where to Get
The FiiO FA7S can be purchased at Red Ape – Headphone Store or Official FiiO AliExpres for only RM1,459.00.
Purchase Link :
Red Ape – Headphone Store Shopee : https://invol.co/cl7uma7
Red Ape – Headphone Store LAZADA : https://invol.co/cl7umbe
FiiO – Official AliExpress : https://invol.co/cl7umch
Design
It seems that Fiio is starting to consolidate their IEM’s design to be more consistent on their line-up. The previous FA7 has a custom IEM like design, where the shell of the IEM takes the general shape of the ear. However, for the FA7s it has a rounded cylinder-like design, similar to the FD3 and FD7.
The faceplate has a few design elements to it, on the side, it has the same mirror polish as the body of the earphones whereas on the top it has brushed finishing with a Y shaped ventilated grille that somewhat looks like a Mercedes Benz logo in the middle, although it has a ventilated grille, it does not compromise the isolation. The brushed finishing is a nice touch for the faceplate as it hides fingerprints very well.
The Fiio FA7s come with 2 colours designs, silver with blue grille and black with gold grille. It features 316L Stainless Steel with a mirror polished body that loves to keep your fingerprints and sweat marks instantly when you put it on but you will be pleased to know that it has greater resistance from corrosion. Down side? It can be slightly heavy in the ears. The nozzle is covered with a metal mesh to keep ear wax falling inside.
For earphones cable fanatics out there, you will be pleased to know that Fiio had thrown in their LC-RC cable into the package as stock cable, it features an 8 wires litz style braided design (4 wires on each channel) with silver plated monocrystalline copper conductors that capable to deliver true balanced connection to the drivers, greyish black TPU insulator which is rather soft but it does give a bit of hefty feel for a stock earphones cable.
The mmcx connectors on the earphones side are tastefully colour coded with red and blue which will be well hidden once the cable is connected to the earphone. The fitting of the mmcx connectors fits very snugly, without using the assist tool unplugging it may require some technique and strength.
Gears Used for Comparisons
- ddHiFi TC35i Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Adapter
- Ifi Zen Dac
- Fiio μBTR
- Ultimate Ears UE900s
- Sony XBA-300AP
Song List
Tone and Presentation
The overall tonality tuning of FA7s is rather natural and balanced with mids and vocals brought up to the front row. The natural and balanced tonality characteristics allows the FA7s to perform fairly decently to most if not all music genres.
Soundstage
The FA7s do not have a very wide soundstage to begin with but in terms of depth, you can really feel the layers in front while listening. That being said, the staging imaging presentation is great, you can easily identify the placement of each instrument. From the midrange are placed upfront on the stage, followed by the lower range behind the midrange and highs at the very back end. All in all, it does give an intimate vibe.
Separation and Timbre
This is the section where the 6 Balanced Armature of the FA7s able to shine. The tuning of the FA7s is quite well done, there is no heavy coloration nor bleeding of frequencies, each instrument’s details are presented in harmony without affecting each other’s detail. During the intro playback of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, the layers of vocals are easily distinguishable.
Drivability and Source Synergy
From smartphones, laptop internal audio output to DAPs and portable amplifiers. The Fiio FA7s should be able to handle any output source without the need of cranking the volume high up. With the FA7s hooked up to an iPhone X with ddHifi TC35i adapter, at 20-30% volume control would be the ideal listening volume for me. However, the FA7s is quite sensitive to source quality, while hooking it up to the ifi Zen DAC does improve the soundstage and bass response, there is a noticeable background hissing especially when there is no music playing. The natural balance-ish sound signature of these earphones makes amplifier pairing interesting, you can easily add on different flavours of sound just by changing the output source, is like having a plain canvas but with a splash of color here and there the end result can be rather enjoyable.
Bass
Bassheads may want to stop reading from here on and skip these earphones. The bass from the Fiio FA7s doesn’t offer a huge amount of bass. There are some sub-bass rumbles but it’s definitely not in the way dynamic drivers perform, instead it performs with a well-controlled, tight manner with a short decay. Nonetheless, it is still quite fun to listen and it still does brings out the energy with EDM and pop tracks. With the bass ear tips that are included in the package, it does emphasize the bass ever so slightly more but even with the default balanced ear tips.
Mids
The overall midrange has a very detailed and natural sound. The Saxophone in “Take Five ” track presents a warm-ish and full-bodied tone together with the upfront staging presentation, the details from the Saxophone notes are just well received. Lady Gaga’s “I’ll Never Love Again” plays almost perfectly on the FA7s, the intimacy, emotions and energy from her vocals are well expressed. However, some of the vocal mid notes can sound a tad dry-ish and grainy which can be a little annoying for some vocal tracks if you spotted it.
Highs
The highs are well pronounced in the background, even with all the frequencies playing around in the front of the stage. On “La Campanella” track, the triangle and xylophone notes are nicely presented with a nice clean sparkle and decay, even though both of them are playing at the same time, their notes are very easily distinguishable. The highs, despite sparkly, do not make it sound harsh in any way so even after listening for long hours I do not feel fatigue at all.
Comparisons
Ultimate Ears UE900s (With Spinfit ear tips and Oyaide cable)
The UE900s have a slightly warmer signature and have a wider soundstage compared to the FA7s, however, the UE900s lacks a lot of micro details on the higher end frequencies. The UE900s does have a better presence of bass but the presence of the high sparkles is not as noticeable and it is less refined as compared to the FA7s. The UE900s mid-range separations are not as well done when it comes to complex music genres.
Sony XBA-300AP
The midrange of XBA-300AP is totally the opposite of FA7s, vocals are quite laid back and recessed. However, the XBA-300AP has much more bass presence than the FA7s, but it is not bloated in any way. The XBA-300AP does not do well in terms of sound staging, it does have a wide stage, but there is not much depth to it in comparison to FA7s.
Who is it for?
If you are someone who wants a well-balanced sound for listening to almost all genres of music and wants something easy to drive without a thick portable setup, these may be the earphones you may want to check them out.
Final Words
Overall, Fiio has done a really good job with the FA7s, although it is not the perfect in-ears, with its included massive range of ear tips, fancy cable, hard water-resistant case, decent hardware specifications and of course decent audio presentation the Fiio FA7s does bring a lot to the table at this price tag.
